In our ovarian cancer cell line panel, EpCAM expression was inversely correlated with the DNA methylation status of the promoter and part of exon 1, as reported for several other tumour types (Spizzo et al, 2007; Tai et al, 2007; Yu et al, 2008; van der Gun et al, 2008). The gene discussed is EPCAM; the disease is ovarian carcinoma.